Burn Notice is the story of an ex-spy now private eye and his quest to find the people who turned his life upside down. Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) was in the middle of Africa, trying to negotiate with a gang member when he was given a burn notice (a spy term for "your services are no longer required"). After escaping from Africa, he finds himself in Miami with no money and no job. He’s able to make a living using his spy skills to assist others, while trying to figure out who issued the burn notice. Michael enlists the help of Sam (Bruce Campbell), an FBI agent who used to work with him, and Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), Michael’s gun-toting Irish ex-girlfriend.

Watching Burn Notice is a little like attending espionage school. As Michael explains the situation to the viewer, he lets us in on the trade secrets that make him a good spy. Using his knowledge and a few common items, Michael repeatedly saves the day. Each episode is action-packed, as he attempts to outsmart the bad guys.

Conversely, Chuck is the story of computer geek turned spy, but not of his own free will. On his birthday Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) opens an email from his college nemesis, and all government secrets are uploaded to his brain. Trying to go about his mundane life, he suddenly finds himself involved in harrowing situations, as a sinister organization attempts to obtain the secrets. The resulting activity causes the CIA and NSA to send agents to monitor Chuck. CIA agent Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) poses as his girlfriend. And Casey (Adam Baldwin), from the NSA, joins Chuck to work at the Buy More (think Best Buy) much to the stress of Morgan, Chuck’s best friend.

As opposed to Michael Weston, Chuck skips espionage school and is thrown right into the mix. He finds himself equipped with all of the spy secrets, but none of the technical know-how necessary to perform the job. He tries to go about his normal life, while hiding his new skills from friends and family. Complicating matters even further is that although Sarah is not really Chuck’s girlfriend, he begins to wish for a real relationship with her. In each episode we watch Chuck try to extricate himself from dangerous situations, armed only with limited knowledge and a lot of luck.

Robert Bates – Glenwood Branch

And they lived happily ever after.

That’s how all fairy tales end, but is it really the end of the story? Not according to Jim Hines in The Stepsister Scheme. This novel recounts the adventures a bunch of strong-willed, smart-mouthed princesses have, while rescuing Prince Charming (aka Armand).

Meet Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella as you’ve never seen them before. These are not Disney heroines who burst into song at a moment’s notice; these are real life girls with histories and minds of their own. Snow knows mirror magic and uses it to keep her friends safe. She also is an unapologetic flirt. Talia (who detests her fairy tale name of Sleeping Beauty) is a martial arts expert and has some well-earned anger management issues. She hates fairies and everything to do with them. Think about that one!

Then there’s Danielle Whiteshore…our heroine…who was a maid, but recently married the crown prince of Lorindar. Upon returning from their honeymoon, Danielle is visited — and attacked — by one of her wicked (and strangely magical) stepsisters. Apparently, the steps still think they can have the prince for themselves and have abducted him. Danielle and her friends go after him, encountering trolls, drunken pixies, flying horses, evil queens, and their own worst fears. As they move from one hair-raising escapade to the next, you’re never quite sure how the princesses are going to survive…let alone win.

But, after all, it is a fairy tale and the adventure (and the series) must continue. A second installment furthers these strong women’s friendships and tales of derring-do in The Mermaid’s Madness.  Apparently, Hans Christian Andersen didn’t write the entire story of what happened to the young mermaid who fell in love with a human prince.

By the way: These books actually live up to their fun cover art! If you notice a similarity to a certain set of three girls who worked for someone named Charlie, you might be on to something.

Kristen Blount – Administration Office

Tart-tongued, sassy and smart, 18-year-old Adair Colley may take no prisoners when it comes to dealing with fools and Yankees; but in 1863, the brutal Union Militia certainly does – that is after executing, raping, and beheading countless Missouri civilians including women and children – often for nothing more than sending cookies and warm socks in “care boxes” to their Confederate sons.

When following the savage beating of her father, Adair questions the statutes of martial law, she is banished to an infamous federal detention center in St. Louis for enemy women. There, conflicted Union Major William Neumann, demands Colley’s written confession as a Confederate spy. Adair would rather die of the consumption, already seeping into her lungs. Instead, she chooses to write a fable of her short happy life before General William T. Sherman’s implementation of “total war” and devastation upon innocent Missouri citizens. Neumann is enchanted beyond reason with the provoking, backtalking country girl, and orchestrates her escape.

And still, this is only half of poet-historian Paulette Jiles’ absorbing Civil War narrative. The adrenalin-pumping rest – Adair’s harrowing recovery of her beloved dun gelding Whiskey, her intrepid journey homeward through war-devastated valleys, and Neumann’s parallel quest to find her, despite his own attempt at escape (in this case the surgeon’s saw for a potentially gangrenous bullet wound) — all converge like a thousand violins playing at once.

Writing with grit, gumption, and at times, startling humor, Jiles illuminates readers with some shocking truths about the Civil War — in particular the cultural annihilation of American citizens at the hands of a sometimes less than noble Union force.

Aimee Zuccarini – East Columbia Branch

Anyone know what’s going on with Jon & Kate this week? Or where Megan Fox ate dinner last night? How’s Mischa Barton doing after, you know, the thing? How was your sister’s date with that guy? Did she text you from the restaurant? Have you uploaded those pictures of the kids to Flickr yet? Have you pulled up the real time traffic for your commute?

Moving beyond “how to” guides, Hal Niedzviecki’s provocative new book The Peep Diaries is one of the first efforts (that I’m aware of) to marshal the latest evidence and ask a deeper question about this surfeit of information. If technology and the “instant update” have radically changed both our information appetite and our information diet, what are the social consequences?

Starting at the point where pop culture and technology intersect, Niedzviecki catalogs the emergence of what he calls “peep culture” and argues that “we’re all learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors…. You need to know. You need to be known.” Niedzviecki cites blogging, reality television, celebrity gossip, and social networking as the pillars of peep. He argues that this “perfect storm” of new media developments and new technology has radically changed both the rules and possibilities for the exchange of personal information in society. In aggregating our fractured pop culture this way, Niedzviecki holds a mirror up to our appetites and concerns. “Suddenly, all things once sacred and private… are to be observed and consumed.” As we indulge the impulse both to watch and be watched, Niedzviecki argues that our identities and values are challenged and transformed.

Niedzviecki’s investigation is a must-read. He uses a range of examples (some of which, by way of warning, are mature in theme and content) to suggest that recent changes in our attitudes toward celebrity, privacy, media, and technology are pervasive and transformative. Ultimately his is a thesis about our voracity for information and knowledge in the twenty-first century, and about our changing perception of what constitutes valid or essential knowledge. Take a look at The Peep Diaries, then come back and share your comments about peep culture.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

When the nights get long and chilly, my family loves to huddle together in the dark and watch a scary movie. Finding one that we can all watch together can be tricky, but we recently discovered a gem in Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain (G), which has just the right mix of mystery and adventure. In it, two orphans possessing extraordinary powers find a home with the wealthy Aristotle Bolt (Ray Milland). Bolt doesn’t have their best interests at heart, however, resulting in a game of cat and mouse as the children flee to Witch Mountain. You’ll be on the edge of your seat as the kids try to find their way home. The DVD is a re-release of the 1975 original, and has bonus features including pop-up fun facts, commentary by director John Hough, and information about the making of the movie.

With the children safely tucked in bed, I recently watched Pan’s Labyrinth (R), directed by Guillermo del Torro. Pan’s Labyrinth is a dark adult fairy tale, in which 12 year-old Ofelia begins a new chapter of life with a pregnant mother, a brutal stepfather, and a nurturing housekeeper. At her "new" home (a creaky abandoned mill), an insect/fairy leads Ofelia to an overgrown labyrinth. The labyrinth is the gateway to an underworld inhabited by a faun who gives Ofelia a mysterious book instructing her to complete three arduous tasks. As she begins to act in defiance to the adults around her, the viewer wonders whether Ofelia is actually experiencing her mystical world or if she has created an incredibly detailed fantasy paralleling the atrocities of her daily life. Only you can decide, which makes this movie so memorable. The dialogue is in Spanish with English subtitles, but you become so engrossed in the story that you won’t even notice.

And saving the best for last, my all-time favorite scary movie is The Shining (R) — a film based on the Stephen King novel — directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. The other star of the movie is the stately Overlook Hotel, which becomes home to caretaker Jack Torrence and his family during the off-season. However, this hotel is not the place most families would want to spend a long snowy winter, especially after discovering that the former caretaker murdered his family there. Add a son with strange communication abilities and a creepy imaginary friend, Jack’s decent into madness, and an eerie soundtrack, and you have a psychological thriller that makes you wish you left the lights on when you started the DVD.

So, which movies make you jump when things go bump in the night?

Andrea Misner – Administration Office

The first page of Team of Rivals finds attorney Abraham Lincoln restless in his modest, sparsely furnished home in Springfield, Illinois, with wife Mary Todd, young sons Robert, William and Tadd, and various other loyal friends. It was May 18, 1860 — the day when the fledgling Republican Party made its decision for a presidential nominee.

Meanwhile, a confident William Henry Seward, the jovial Senator from the state of New York, waited in Auburn, certain that the Republican nomination was his; Ohio governor Salmon Chase gathered his two daughters for a morning reading of Scripture while awaiting the balloting returns; and devoted family man Judge Edward Bates and wife Julia waited with confidence and security for the nomination results.

The election decision — that Lincoln was the nominee — stunned the nation. But this unknown, self-made man raised in poverty became the leader that the country desperately needed as Southern states seceded from the Union and civil war threatened.

His affable, tolerant personality led Lincoln to include Republican rivals in the close embrace of his inner circle. How he accomplished this — and then guided the country through the more difficult years of its history — comprises Goodwin’s 2005 political biography. Included also are the stories of the Lincoln family, as well as the three rivals and their families.

Barack Obama is a fan of this treatment of Lincoln’s presidency. The book gained national recognition after his 2008 election when he announced he was using the model from  A Team of Rivals as a template for the formation his own cabinet.

Doris Kearns Goodwin has won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Her other works include bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.

Please join the Eclectic Evenings Book Discussion in reflecting on Team of Rivals. Meet on November 10 at 7:00 pm in Howard County Central Library’s story room. Team of Rivals is available for pick-up in Playaway format and on CD, as well as in print at the Central Library Fiction Desk. For further information, call 410.313.7834.

Jeanie Pfefferkorn – Central Library

In his chilling new supernatural novel Blood and Ice, author Robert Masello effectively uses alternating chapters spanning centuries to tell both a love story and an adventure.

Journalist Michael Wilde hopes that an assignment in the South Pole will give him a new lease in life. On a routine dive in the Antarctic Ocean, he discovers a submerged block of ice holding two captive bodies bound in chains. Beside them is a chest filled with a strange, and sinister, cargo. The block of ice begins to melt and everyone assigned to the research station must grapple with what is unleashed. As Michael unravels the mystery of the couple, his search leads from the battles of the Crimean War to the unexplained depths of the Antarctic Ocean.

This book has everything I like in a novel…romance, history, suspense, tangible characters, good pacing and an intriguing setting. I also became quite curious about Antarctica and often referred to a visually gorgeous book entitled Antarctica: Secrets of the Southern Continent "to get the facts".

Eve Olsen – Central Library

Bram Stoker really started a trend when he wrote Dracula in 1897. Who could have guessed that over the next century, vampire books would become a whole sub-genre of horror literature?  The Strain (the first book of a new trilogy) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan is the latest entry in the field.

In recent decades, both movies and books have given us any number of new and different slants on the bloodsuckers we find so fascinating (and scary).  We’ve had comic vampires (remember Love at First Bite?) and romantic vampires (the Stephenie Meyer books). We’ve also had vampires with a yen for self-revelation (see Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice). You name it, we’ve had it. I’ve not yet run into a book about vampire space aliens, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.

As for The Strain, it goes back to original principles. The vampires portrayed in this book are relentlessly predatory and downright terrifying. Humans have blood and vampires drink it. Period. With the crowd of bloodsuckers in The Strain, there’s no such thing as skipping a meal.

Paradoxically though, The Strain is also a remarkably modern take on the vampire myths. The hero is a doctor who works for the Centers for Disease Control.  As a scientist, he begins with no more belief in vampires than he might have in the Tooth Fairy.  However, as a scientist, the existence of the undead becomes utterly logical to him when he discovers there’s nothing magic or supernatural involved in their creation. What is involved is a virus. Unfortunately it is a very powerful and fast acting virus. Neither Holy Water, the Cross, nor antibiotics will work against it.

The book begins with a plane full of dead passengers landing at Kennedy Airport. Only they’re not exactly dead. As this last reality becomes clear, the action spreads to the rest of the New York metropolitan area while the doctor and his associates attempt to contain what has quickly become an epidemic.

How do they deal with it? Can they deal with it? Maybe yes and maybe no. It will take two more books before the reader can know for certain.  Personally, I can’t wait for book two.

Joe McHugh – Administration Office

I have always admired Pippi Longstocking. That irrepressible, feisty, assertive spirit fueled by a sense of fairness and justice, and yet so distrustful and suspicious of authority. Lisbeth Salander is the grown up Pippi Longstocking, as conceived and written by Stieg Larsson. Gone are the braids and the impish grin, replaced by tattoos, nose rings, funky clothes, and irascible attitude. In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first book in the Millenium series, Salander teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist, as they solve the mystery of a young girl gone missing from the wealthy Vanger family. Not only is Salander a brilliant hacker with a photographic memory, but she would be the last person you would want to mess with.

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second book in the series. This time Salander comes back home after traveling abroad, to find herself a murder suspect. Hunted not only by the police but also by mortal enemies from the past, she goes underground using very creative disguises. Blomkvist, one of the few who still believes in her innocence, unravels Salander’s past in his efforts to help her.

The third in the series — The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — will soon be released. It has been rumored that a fourth book was found in the laptop of Larsson after he passed away in 2004 from a fatal heart attack at the age of 50.

I find myself wishing I could hang out with Salander and Blomkvist in one of those jazzy joints in Stockholm. Both characters are conflicted, yet they come across as compelling souls. Salander, growing up in such a harrowing, dysfunctional environment somehow kept the hope alive to love once again. Blomkvist with his naivete and despite his journalistic sophistication, shows an innate trust of people.

Larsson may not have had the gift of time, but he surely gifted us with a well-crafted thriller and with the most memorable odd couple in Sweden.

Cristina Lozare- Central Library

No anthology of heavy metal would be complete without an entire section devoted to the band with "Metal" in its very name.

Metallica – Ride the Lightning (1984)
This, folks, is thrash-metal. How to describe thrash-metal? Hummingbird-fast palm-muted ribcage-pounding rhythm guitar at volume 11 (that’s a This is Spinal Tap reference, in case you didn’t know), double-bass-drum-pedal insanity, harmonized (sometimes three-part) lead guitar riffs executed with laser precision, relentless bass lines, and extended “danger zone” guitar solos. Seriously…this is what heavy metal is all about! To fully appreciate it, you need to grow out your hair out so that when you rapidly move your head up and down to the beat (aka headbanging), it looks like Cousin It jumping on a trampoline. Ride the Lightning is best known for the songs “For Whom the Bell Tolls," “Fade To Black," “Creeping Death," and the instrumental “The Call of Ktulu," which draws its title from the chilling H. P. Lovecraft horror story “The Call of Chtulhu."

Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986)
I would love for you to check this album out of the library. Honestly though, you would be better off searching through your couch cushions for enough pennies to just go and buy it. It can be summed up with two words: Magnum Opus. The opening track “Battery," sets the tone…a steady build-up of classical guitars that undergoes a sudden transformation into heart pounding epicness.

Metallica’s next two releases are really just as good and should not be overlooked. 1988 gave us …And Justice for All, which featured the Grammy-winning song “One." In 1991 they released a self-titled work commonly referred to as the Black Album, which includes the anti-lullaby anthem “Enter Sandman."

Discerning listeners will draw parallels between these four albums and great works of classical musicians, especially those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Their lyrical content is dark and unforgiving. Recurring themes include death, hypocrisy, misplaced justice, monsters, hopelessness, violence, and the human capacity for evil (which I appreciate, but in moderation).

Stay tuned for more heavy metal reviews!

Dan Curry – Savage Branch